The question I am asked most frequently by authors who have submitted manuscripts to Optical Engineering - "What happened to my paper?" I won't bore you with a list of the stock answers I have for these authors, but they all tend to be variations on the theme that "things are taking a bit longer than anticipated." Such a response doesn't satisfy very many of my questioners and, as you might expect, often elicits a response of its own - usually unprintable Consequently, I decided to find out what really does happen to their papers and to share my findings with you.

The High-Tech Industry Manual: Conversion of U.S. Industry to High Technology Through Technology Transfer-Reviewed by Raymond J. Mataloni; Laser Processing of Thin Films and Microstructures-Reviewed by Richard Lee

An architecture for a real-time signal correlation based on optical joint transform correlation is proposed. Two parallel on-plane acousto-optic (AO) cells and square-law converter are employed to produce cross correlation of two electrical signals. Arrangement of the two AO cells on the same plane permits this architecture to be implemented in a compact form. The proposed architecture has a capability of performing parallel multiple cross correlations by addition of AO cells on the input plane. The theoretical analysis and preliminary experimental results are presented.

Focusing is a critical requirement in optical microlithography. The high resolution required calls for a large relative aperture, and this in turn shortens the depth of focus. Depth of focus on the order of the wavelength of light is a major technical problem, especially if one does not impose narrow tolerances on the flatness of the substrate. Here we report on a capacitive focusing method that makes feasible focusing accuracies to a fraction of a micrometer, automatically if desired. The theory, an implementation, and results obtained are presented.

Recent scientific and research work at the Department of Physical Optics of the Central Optical Laboratory, Warsaw, Poland, is reviewed. In particular, achievements in gradient-index optics, optical processing via Fourier transforms, classical and holographic interferometry, and light microscopy are presented. Activity in education and training of engineers and scientists in optics is also discussed.

The accuracy of motion detection in an image by three proposed techniques is explored using synthetic images with varying contrasts and noise levels. The maximum likelihood test consistently results in a higher probability of detection of true motion than either mean or median tests. However, the maximum likelihood test also consistently has a higher probability of false alarms, that is, the detection of stationary objects as moving objects, than either mean or median tests. For applications in which execution efficiency is at least as important as a high probability of detection, the mean or median tests may be used to advantage.

An automatic image processing technique for analyzing the laser images of two-phase (oil and water) pipeline flow is proposed. The main steps of this technique include a new automatic thresholding method for conversion from gray-level to binary images, binary smoothing, labeling, examining, and calculating. The technique has proven reliable to automatically analyze the images of this two-phase-flow research. By random searching, bright water droplets (droplets with high gray level) are detected. Based on the characteristics of the bright droplets, the threshold is determined by the new thresholding method, called cross-edge-line thresholding. Experimental observation shows that this thresholding method can be used successfully for two-phase laser images. Binary smoothing is used to smooth the boundary of the extracted droplets. Labeling is then used to distinguish each separate droplet. In the examining step, elimination of faint droplets and nondroplets and multiplication by a possibility factor to account for droplets only partially immersed in the control volume are done to improve the performance of the technique.

A common problem in optical metrology is the determination of the exact location of an edge (a black/white transition). The use of cameras for this task has been restricted in the past because of their limited number of pixels and the lack of methods for subpixel accuracy edge detection. Analysis of the optical and electronic parts of modern solid-state cameras shows that it is possible to determine the exact location of an edge to subpixel accuracy, independently of the system's modulation transfer function. A novel algorithm for this purpose is presented together with an expression for the precision of the edge location as a function of pixel noise and edge step height. Experimental verification was carried out using a modified CCD camera coupled to an intelligent framestore (smart camera). Under optimum conditions the measured accuracy for the edge position was better than 1/140 of the pixel period, corresponding to less than 120 nm on the sensor surface of the camera. Applications of this novel method in metrology and micrometrology are discussed.

This paper presents a methodology for estimating the silhouette of a target from a time sequence of forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imagery recorded at video rates. The major problems associated with this type of imagery are noise and frame-to-frame misregistration. We achieve registration and noise smoothing by a combination of spatial and temporal processing. Edge-preserving smoothing is applied to individual frames prior to gray level thresholding. A new algorithm for finding the optimum threshold is presented. The resulting sequence of binary image frames is registered by cross-correlating the 1-D x and y projections of each frame. The computationally efficient 1 -D registration technique is just as accurate as a much slower 2-D correlation method. Temporal smoothing is realized by using a binary median filter to process frame sequences. We show that binary temporal median filtering is comparable in performance with gray level median processing followed by thresholding. Our target estimation approach is applicable in situations in which a single target exists against a background of relatively uncorrelated noise.

In the work reported here, we estimate the design parameters of a superconductive synchrotron radiation (SR) ring employing the electron undulating method, which is capable of large-area exposure of SR. The optimum electron energy is found to lie in the range 0.6 to 0.7 GeV with a magnetic field B of 4.0 T to 4.5 T and a beam current in the range 200 to 300 mA. Research into the miniaturization of the SR ring and its injector to complete a practical SR system has continued. In particular, low energy injection improves the cost effectiveness of the SR system, but this requires further study. Therefore, the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry and Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., jointly completed "NIJI-1," the first compact normal-conductive SR ring in the world designed for low energy injection studies. We succeeded in making the first beam storage in February 1986 and since then have achieved the storage of a beam current of more than 200 mA of 163-MeV electrons; its 1 /e lifetime was about 50 min. Research on topics such as high efficiency injection at low energy and miniaturization of the injector is continuing.

Series-expansion methods for interferometric tomography of continuous flow fields are discussed. The techniques are based on series expansion by orthogonal polynomials and circular harmonics multiplied by an envelope function. These methods employing continuous basis functions are appropriate for reflecting the peculiar characteristics of interferometric tomography of fluid flow fields, namely, continuity, data sparsity, and nonuniform sampling. The high approximating power of the methods allows accurate representation of fields with a small number of series terms. This generates enough redundancy for a given number of data points in setting up a system of linear algebraic equations. The data redundancy thus generated yields accurate reconstruction even under ill-posed conditions including limited view angle, incomplete projections, and high noise level.

This paper presents the theoretical background and experimental verification of a new composite grating with two different grating frequencies, which was developed for simultaneous measurements of small and large displacements in a single specimen using moire interferometry. A composite grating with line frequencies of 1200 and 300 lines/mm was used to study the changes in the displacement field and the approximate J-integral values of a 5152-H32 aluminum, single-edge-notched specimen under increasing load.

Transverse and volume magnification effects are described for the case of a single lens used to relay the object space in off-axis holography of micro-objects. Using a single calibration of the transverse magnification at a mean longitudinal image distance, we derive relationships for transverse and volume magnifications for a given control volume. The validity of simple limiting solutions in relevant physical conditions is also discussed. Using the knowledge of the transverse magnification at two longitudinal locations, we determine a simple solution for the magnification calculation at any third location. The exact solutions for the transverse and volume magnifications are then obtained in a simpler manner.

Video coding has been investigated for the novel application of video transmission over packet-switched networks. The underlying design goals are presented, together with a software implementation of a coding scheme based on the technique of subband coding. The coding scheme, which divides the input signal into frequency bands in all three dimensions, seems promising in that it lends itself to parallel implementation, is robust enough to handle errors due to lost packets, and yields high compression with sustained good quality. Moreover, it may be well integrated with the network to handle issues such as congestion control and error handling. A discussion of these issues is given, together with the results obtained from the simulated system.

The different focusing characteristics of an optical fiber core and its cladding are used for the determination of core eccentricity. The accuracy, speed, and simplicity of the described measuring method makes it suitable for application on a production line. A first-order theory is presented and supported by experimental results.